The Games That We Play
by MoreThanJustAPieceInTheirGames
Summary: Taking place after Coin's and Snow's death, this story follows Katniss as she struggles through her emotions, moves back to District 12, grows back together with Peeta, and lives life beyond Mockingjay's epilogue. Through all the pain, love, and opportunities that it brings her, she discovers that life isn't always as it seems and the games that we play are just another part of it.
1. Lost in My Mind

**The Games That We Play **

**Chapter 1: Lost in My Mind **

Following the deafening sound of the gunshot, I freeze for a moment as the people in front of the mansion, in the side streets, all awaiting Snow's assassination, pause in stunned silence, disbelief surely etched on their faces at the thought that I killed the wrong person. I imagine their expressions, their thoughts, especially of Haymitch, Peeta, Plutarch. They must have thought I was crazy, demented for not killing the man solely responsible for all the tragedies in my life, instead shooting the woman who had promised my happiness and guaranteed a future free of the despair poisoning my life since the moment Effie Trinket called my sister's name at the Reaping Ceremony, a moment that now feels lost in time and belongs to another person, a different person, like a nightmare that instead haunts in a differently reality.

My sister. Prim. A young girl who was a beautiful as her name, as bright as the sun that shined to help the flower she was named for blossom. She was so promising, so hopeful, so optimistic despite all the moments where I felt as if I couldn't go on. Now she's gone. One of the only things I ever lived for, gone with a single decision to drop that stupid bomb. I grit my teeth and know that I've made the right decision. I still can't help but feel Snow's voice echoing in my ears, a blurry silence overtaking all my thoughts. _"Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other."_ At that moment I knew. It was at the orchestration of Coin that my sister was killed, murdered without a cause. She died in the assistance of others, and a tear streaks its way across my cheek as I realize that's the only way she ever would have wanted to leave this Earth.

Why couldn't it have been me? But the answer rings all too true in the back of my mind. This is my punishment, my punishment for being the cause of thousands of lost lives: living with my guilt, knowing that the blame rested solely on me. But now I had to cope with Prim's death, one thing I don't ever think I'd be able to get over. From the moment our dad died all those many years ago, she had been my happiness, my only sunshine in our dark, plagued world ridden with angst and death. From her towheaded plaits, to her relentless smile, to her rosy cheeks and blouse that somehow always came untucked, the thought of her used to bring a smile to my face. Now it only brought a choked sob to the back of my throat.

For a while, I tricked myself into thinking that Peeta brought me hope and love into my life, a promise that things could be better. But it was all a show, a façade, an act to convince Panem of my actions in my first Hunger Games and myself that everything was going to be alright. Wasn't it? I don't know what to feel anymore. My emotions in general have tended to be void since Prim's death, and I was never really certain of my feelings of the boy with the bread. It had been too complicated, too messy to try and deal with since the Capitol had toyed with his mind, another one of their silly little games.

All these thoughts raced through my mind in that single moment as everyone around stood with bated breath as the future was once more uncertain. A single bead of sweat ran down the curve of my cheek. I saw of flash of gray to my right. And then the world erupted into chaos. My vision blackened a little at the edges as I heard Snow's gurgling, blood-choked cackle before he slumped forward. Dead. Soldiers and officials in gray surrounded both him and me, and my mind raced back to that time in my first Hunger Games, where the wolf-like creatures ran and attacked with their feral but haunting eyes, reminding me of the deaths I'd witnesses and been a part of. The terror present then overtook me now, and I was lost in my mind.

There was no turning back, and I suppose I'd realized that from the time I first held up the berries for the entirety of Panem to witness. What I'd done now, though, would surely face consequences. I just knew I would be questioned, humiliated, tortured at the least. I would face execution in public, surely, though I'm not sure whether I would be graced with a death like the Avox girl, in which they accidentally used too much electricity so that her heart stopped instantly. Or it could be like Darius', where the Capitol officials killed him slowly, limb by limb, cutting off every part of him until nothing remained.

And my crimes had been much graver than his. This had been the last straw. After all, I had been given break after break, chance after chance. I was merely a figurehead, and most of the hard stuff was done for me, so this it been it for them. For everyone, I suppose. I cannot fathom a fate worse than Darius', but who knows? The people punishing me were part of a nation who invented the Hunger Games. So with that in mind, my decision was made. Just the thought of saying goodbye to the few people in my life who still mattered, having to confront my mother after all of this, became too much.

Whispering a goodnight to myself, I attempt to rip the pill off my sleeve, the nightlock capsule that promises death, promises peace, promises everything I want right now. It is solace that I seek but do not find, for instead of sinking into fabric, into the pill, I taste flesh and blood. Only when I lift my head to meet Peeta's gaze do I realize he covered the nightlock with his hand, which was now scarred with his blood and my own teeth marks. I scream at him in desperation, to let my arm go, it let me go so I can just end all of this. For good. But even I cannot be allowed this, after all I've seen, all I've been through.

I think I see a little bit of pain in his eyes, sadness even, when he responds that he can't do it, but it must be my imagination. The Peeta that I thought once cared for me is long gone, replaced by some _creation_ of the Capitol, a creature who tries to suffocate me to death and was convinced I was out to kill him. Now the only person I'm out to kill is myself. I let out a gasped sob as the violet pill, Cinna's final gift, is released from the pouch on my arm and crushed into dust after it falls to the ground and faces the wrath of a guard's boot. So I'm right. The Capitol made him into this monster that hates me, that is working against me, that is nothing like the boy I once knew.

I turn to the one person I never thought I could again: Gale, as a final attempt to escape this pathetic excuse of a life. My screams resonate across the sea of people as I'm lifted above the chaos stirring in front of the mansion, displayed for everyone to watch on the large screens established around the City Circle. I cry out, knowing he'll make the final shot to end it all. But nothing happens. I know he sees me, but he does nothing, further proof that I can never trust him again, as he was indirectly responsible for my sister's death, _no_, my sister's murder.

I'm handcuffed and blindfolded as unknown officials drag me through a black labyrinth, consisting of endless passages and countless elevators until I've lost all sense of direction. When I'm finally thrown onto a floor, unchained, I lift my blindfold to see I'm in my room at the Training Center. It's all but foreign to me now, as it has been ridded of any decorations, clothes, or bedding, but the memories of the days before my Games were spent here, the times when you lived it up and tried to convince yourself that yes, you maybe did have a chance, you could win this, why not, until you entered the arena and realized your nightmares were much worse than you feared. Of course I would remember it. It was the place Peeta had held me, those amazing times when I was so scared but let everything go, because why not? I had nothing to lose.

I sighed and breathed in a shaky breath of air. It was all coming back. Shooting that arrow at the Gamemakers. Hearing Peeta confess his supposed love for me. Crying. Screaming. Training. Avox girl. Darius. Rue. The nightmares. Peeta's arms wrapped around me, his breath in my ear, our bodies pressed warmly against one another…

Stop. I try to tell myself this as I stand up and inspect my body. It's no use, and I am stuck in my own mind as memories attack me. Some are horrific, and some are happy and loving, reminding me of small moments of goodness present in my life in the past two years, but both bring tears to my eyes, making my throat thick. My body is just as ruined as my mind, but I have given up any thought of living. I strip myself of the Mockingjay suit, the face of the rebellion, and notice I'm bruised, but what does it matter? My limp finger tells me I've broken something in my hand, but I pass it off as I notice my skin did not survive the struggle on the way here. The artificial, pink "skin" has been shredded like deli meat and is bleeding, but no help arrives. Not that I care or anything, because my life is just a waste of air.

I manage to crawl over to the mattress and close my eyes. My last wish is to fall into a permanent unconsciousness, an endless blackness, and I pray that my wish will be answered as sleep takes over me, hoping beyond hope I never wake up.


	2. A Way Out of Here

**The Games That We Play **

**Chapter 2: A Way Out of Here **

I wake up, who knows how long later, with that blind, vague feeling you get when you wake up, wondering where you are and how you got there, only for it all to come crashing down on you. The events of the last day I remember come back mercilessly, and I stumble to the carpet on my knees, covering my ears with my hands to get away, to make it all go away, somehow. I let out a hysterical sob and suck in a breath of air through my clenched teeth, trying to get a hold of myself.

The blood that seeped through from the ruination of my thin, synthetic skin clotted, making me and my movements stiff, sticky, awkward. I'm alive, but I can't say I'm much grateful for that. It seemed that through the entire Hunger Games and rebellion, people wanted to live, to survive. That was the ultimate goal. But what Finnick, what Haymitch said was right. The Games, witnessing the deaths, feeling the terror, and seeing the people you love die at your own hand haunt you forever in the night. Death is a blessing, and the survivors are the only ones who realize that, the ones who still hear the anguish and relive the horror but keep on living their lives because they're just puppets of the Capitol. They're a part of their little Games and will never cease to be, because those are the rules, plain and simple. According to the new regime, there will be no Hunger Games, or at least that was the plan before Coin's assassination. But that was a lie, because she planned on holding a Games for the Capitol children, and carrying that out would make the vicious cycle of the Hunger Games never end, so it had to be done. She was the leader of it all, and people followed her because of what she promised them, but what she was promising would only lead to our self-destruction once more.

Even so, I wanted that Capitol Games. In the end I must have realized it would just be a spark for another rebellion, another regime of dictatorship, cruelty, and evil, so I made my decision. But I had wanted those Games. To make them feel true hunger, genuine loss, to see the faces of those moronic, innocent faces of those Capitol citizens the moment their spoiled, guarded children first got reaped, the moment where someone first died. It would all be a joke –from their training to the bloodbath, which would probably consist of them fighting over the food supply, because they didn't know what it was like to be starving. They didn't know that terror of the Reaping every year, the helplessness of knowing you were going to die some horrid death in a matter of days, the pain we all felt at watching teenagers we didn't even know – strangers - dying at the hands of one another. It was all entertainment for them, but those Capitol Games would be entertainment for us, the victims, the people who had lived with it for so long. They would have felt what we felt those 75 excruciating years, and it would have been sweet, raw justice if those Games had occurred, but I knew it would cause a mess of trouble, so I did what was right, in addition to avenging my sister's death, though it compromised what I _truly _wanted.

What had happened to me? What happened to the girl whose hair used to be in two braids instead of one, who used to smile, who raised her hand in school the first day because she knew the Valley Song? What happened to the little girl I once was? _She was gone._ She was gone, hardened by years of torture and sacrifice, now caught up in thoughts of death and suicide and vengeance. I look down at my scars, my burns, a constant reminder of the trials I faced, and struggled into the shower, just kneeling on the linoleum tile as the warm water sprays at me from overhead, thankful that I still recalled how to program the gentlest cycle, free from soaps or shampoos that would irritate my body. I start hearing myself in my mind, not talking but still hearing my voice echoing around.

"_My name is Katniss Everdeen. Why am I not dead? I should be dead. It would be best for everyone if I were dead."_ There it is again. Just another one of their silly little games – never-ending and only existing to trick me, to make them one of their compliant, easy pawns. I grit my teeth, trying to escape my own mind as I step out onto the mat that instantly blows me dry, its hot air rushing over my body. I see that the Mockingjay suit is gone – good riddance to that, and I am left with a paper robe, a meal, and a container of medications. I dress, eat, take the medicine, and apply some salve to my skin, going through the motions. It's stuff like this I have to do in order to not think about the wave of memories, thoughts threatening to overwhelm me at every moment.

I think I've been trying to avoid it, to not think about the inevitable; that is, the method of my suicide. It was decided, whether consciously or not, from the moment Prim was murdered, from the moment I chose to aim that gun at Coin, that I would be taking my own life. The last few hours I'd been too caught up to think, but now all thoughts of killing myself, ending the pain, disappearing, consumed me. They wouldn't miss me, not after all I'd done, and it was too painful to live with what had happened. I deserved to die, and they were all planning it anyway. Suicide in District 12 wasn't often unheard of. Parents and children who were dying or on the verge of death often killed themselves in an effort to just, well, escape the life they were living, and it was typically a choice made when families didn't have to sign up for tesserae, which kept each subscriber barely alive and at least doubled your chances of getting Reaped, a fate worse than death. Once you were Reaped, however, that was it. The Capitol took extra precautions on the train, in the Training Center, to ensure that everything in their little Games would run smoothly, that nothing went wrong, because we wouldn't want to have the Capitol citizens suffer due to witnessing one less bloody death than usual, right? It was almost as if the Capitol was saying, _"Now that we've got you, we're not going to let you go. You'll play along with our rules and die by our terms, because that's the way it works. No, you must wait, plagued with the thought of your definite future death, which could come at any moment, rather than ending it now and saving yourself the worry." _

I was home free – for now. If I wanted to do it, I had to make it fast, because if not, I'd end up dying like Darius, the life slowly draining out of me as I was chopped to pieces. I shuddered and balled myself up on my mattress, considering what I had to work with but soon realizing it was all futile. Sure, I could jump from a window, if the glass wasn't a foot thick, or I could make a noose, simple, but I couldn't hang myself from anything, and I could stock up on all the pills they give me at meals and overdose, but they would stop when they discovered what I was really doing. Whatever the government was, they weren't morons. Oh, yes, you better believe they knew what they were doing. They were probably watching me at this very moment, making sure I'm watched 24/7. I could be in television right now, for all I know, since I'm just one big source of entertainment. I could very likely be the next of Plutarch's twisted programs. Or they could be surveying me, analyzing my next move and nit-picking apart every possible motive I had for killing Coin. Yet another one of their mindless games. When it comes right down to it, though, my death is in their hands, and there is nothing I can do to change it.

I eventually decide my death will be a slow one. I won't eat, I won't sleep, and I won't take my pills. Giving up. That's what I'll do, and I've already been doing it in a way; that is, giving up on the thought of living, so what's the difference, really? It scares me that I've become like my mother, who was unresponsive and shut out from the world for so long after my father's death –though my situation wasn't solely caused by Prim's death. It had been coming on for a while, but what can I say, anyway? You know how it goes – the apple never falls too far from the tree, right? It sickens me a little, my hypocrisy. I was having the same reaction my mother did, and even though I was hurting then just as much as she was, I hated her for it – for what she did, for leaving us, in mind, though not in body. But I was doing the same thing she was, so who was I to have gotten mad at her all those years ago? Now I know what it felt like, the stabbing pain that makes you feel breathless and as if you can't possibly get enough air, no matter how hard you try.

Though I'm resolved in my decision, it soon becomes clear that it just won't work. End of story. I was suffering from a morphling withdrawal. I was trying to get off it completely, a huge difference from the large dosage I was on in 13. In my stronger times, I discard the pills, telling myself, yes, you can do this, this will bring you closer to the end, but in the moments where I get a craving for morphling and I get pains and cold aches from the raw desire for it, I'm desperate to find those pills once more and my plan crumbles, just like the nightlock pill in the City Circle that seems like an eternity ago.

So I move on and revise the plan, determined that I'll slowly waste away and die from morphling overdose and addiction, just like those poor creatures from District 6, with their yellow, skin-and-bones body and huge, dilated eyes fixed on absolutely nothing. And this works for a while, but something comes up that I never thought would again: I start singing. I'm not really sure what brought it on, only certain that it consumes all of my time and thoughts. In the shower, at my window, in my sleep, I go through all of the songs my dad taught me – ballads, love songs, mountain tunes, and even songs from before, from the past, from before there was ever a Panem. Singing had never really been in my life after my father died, but now it was back, and I found the songs and their lyrics came back to me like they were written on the back of my hand, like an instinct. It was hard, sometimes, because doing that reminded me of better, happier times spent with my dad and our long hours in the woods together. Sometimes I would be filled with a nostalgic joy at carrying the tunes so important to us both, and sometimes tears would run down my face as I realized I would never be able to experience those memories ever again. At first, my voice was rusty, but after a while, it warmed up and evolved to the sweet voice that I hoped would have made the Mockingjays fall silent with respect and my dad beaming with pride at seeing there was a lot of him and his spirit, his talent, in me, his daughter. Singing fills the empty days and weeks that pass with a voice that rings of loneliness and the past, and it makes the time blur in an impossible way, but I'm thankful that the old me is not completely lost.

As I spend more and more time singing, I become aware of the time that has passed in this jail cell of a room and what has happened in the world outside, which seems all but a distant reality now. I start to wonder – what are they up to? What are they all even doing? I mean, I know I'm going to be executed one way or another, so what's stopping them, holding them back? I'm thinner and hungrier than I ever was during my Games, and it's at my own hand. I'm winning, but it's a cost of near starvation and the degrading effects of the morphling pills, which is all I'm surviving on at the moment. What have I become? I keep asking myself this question and wonder how I'm this far gone, how my life came to this in the end, the kind of stuff in movies and on the news that you never think could _possibly_ happen to you but sneak into your life somehow, dragging in an unexpected tragedy that hits you like a punch in the gut. Some days I feel so sick that I get a hopeful feeling that, yes, maybe the end is near, but soon I notice and come to the cold realization that the morphling pills are shrinking.

So they've finally caught on, but I can't imagine why they're trying to get me off the stuff. If I'm all drugged up and weak, it'll be simple to get rid of me. Easy. And isn't that what they like, after all? Easy compliance? I start to wonder in a fierce panic if they're trying to keep me alive for other plans, if they're trying to remake me into someone I can never be again to train and use me for their wicked schemes. No. Not possible. Absolutely not. I don't care what dream they're operating under, but I will end myself one way or another, whether inside this room or out of it. They can feebly attempt to gain back my lost weight, to dress me up like a doll, to get rid of the physical scars and make me gorgeous, beautiful again. But they'll _never_ get rid of the emotional scars. I won't easily forget what they did. I'll never be their figurehead, or use any weapons or toys they give me, because my loyalty doesn't lie with them anymore – it never did, truthfully. I've lost all respect for all human beings, honestly, because the only ones that exist in this world are ones who try to destroy one another, who believe killing children, innocent children, is the only way to settle their problems, and no matter what way you look at it, it's the cold hard truth. Though people think that killing and violence are the only way to end war, they just cause it and turn humans into something they're not: inhumane, unfeeling monsters, and anyone who thinks otherwise is just joking themselves, and I don't see the point in living in this type of world, with these type of people.

So I go back to my original plan. It's like a seesaw – back and forth, not sure if I want to go one way or another. I lie on my mattress for two days without eating, drinking, or taking morphling tablets, when something happens that I never thought would. My old mentor, Haymitch, looking more tired and weary than usual, enters my room and says in a gruff voice, "Your trial's over." Then he says something I never thought I would ever hear, and I was shocked for a moment in stunned silence at what he said, a possibility I thought impossible. "Come on. We're going home."


End file.
